What does this tell about society when people making healthy public decisions for themselves instead of acting for advertising dollars, are seen as negative?

You have an important point there. After this happened it was quite embarrassing to hear the media criticize Ronaldo for this. Obviously they will not bite the hand that feeds them.

However, with what Ronaldo did at the interview, he gave Coca-Cola much more publicity than this company would have had under other circumstances, it would be interesting to see this month's sales report. That day Ronaldo set three new records for himself and yet all the sports media talked about Coca-Cola for free.